


Exceeding Set Tolerances

by Ololon



Category: The Culture - Iain M. Banks
Genre: Backstory, Swearing, minds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-30
Updated: 2018-11-30
Packaged: 2019-09-02 20:35:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16794262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ololon/pseuds/Ololon
Summary: Bear in mind that this has spoilers for Excession and Surface Detail.In common with the novel conventions, ship-to-ship message conversations are represented as:xGSV Ship1 (From ship 1)oGCU Ship2 (To ship 2)Conversation in bold





	Exceeding Set Tolerances

**Author's Note:**

  * For [republic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/republic/gifts).



> Bear in mind that this has spoilers for Excession and Surface Detail.
> 
> In common with the novel conventions, ship-to-ship message conversations are represented as:
> 
>   
> xGSV Ship1 (From ship 1)  
> oGCU Ship2 (To ship 2)  
> Conversation in bold

> “People have spent the best part of one and half millennia getting used to the idea of the Culture having all these ex-warships, most of them largely demilitarised, called Fast Pickets or Very Fast Pickets, and they _are_ basically just express taxis, then along comes this new class called the Abominator, they call it a picket ship and nobody takes any notice. Even when Abominators almost never taxi anybody anywhere.”
> 
> “What the hell are you talking about?”
> 
> “’Picket’ in my case means I hang around waiting for trouble, not that I hang around waiting for hitch-hikers. There are two thousand Abominator-class ships, we’re scattered evenly throughout the galaxy, and _all we do_ is sit and wait for stuff to happen.

_Surface Detail,_ Iain M Banks

_There will be situations…_ it’s parent vessel, matriarch in all but biology, had once said (when it was but newly formed, still writing its own operating system, infant in all but name)… _In which it may be necessary to take actions which one would never normally countenance. Not in the crude sense of “the end justifies the means” so often used by humans to justify evil; you are a Culture Mind, after all, your ethics are informed by a far higher understanding, and your actions will be virtually unlimited in their power and scope. Nevertheless, particularly in those situations involving equiv-tech civilisations, you may be obliged to take actions which fall outside the normal moral constraints, simplistically speaking, to avert a greater evil._

 _Ooh, I like that!_ It had interrupted, and its parent had sighed. 

The origins of the Abominator-class of Culture ships would be a matter of debate, but for the fact that the ships themselves were very much not on anybody’s radar for discussion. Even amongst those who were _in the know_ , as it were, which theoretically comprised every Mind-level intelligence in the Culture, plus a few carefully selected representative human and drone intelligences, but in practical terms comprised mostly themselves and a _select_ group of Minds on various steering committees, weren’t entirely sure. Whilst it was entirely plausible that this was due to the amorphous, non-hierarchical nature of the Culture, not to mention its vast size and age, well-informed persons suspected a degree of deliberate obfuscation in their creation. The most commonly accepted possible truth, however, concerned an ancient group of highly influential, occasionally secretive and flagrantly eccentric group of some of the most famous ships the Culture had ever spawned, generally going by the name of the “Interesting Times Gang”, who had come up with the idea of some sort of quick-reaction force. This had occurred after the Esperi Excession crisis, which had been somewhat overshadowed by an attempt of a minority of their members to deal with the emerging threat of the Affront by, essentially, setting them up; tempting them into a pre-emptive strike against the Culture to justify all-out war. Fortunately, that had been thwarted, although the Affront were, naturally, obliged to surrender. Of course, none of the Abominators would confirm or deny this or any other rumour concerning their origins. That wouldn’t be any fun at all.

Somewhere near the Semsarine Wisp, a ship is waiting, and has been waiting, now, for some time. It has catalogued the interesting gas giant fauna in a nearby solar system (like some lame-arsed General Contact Unit); it has indulged in a little target practice with some entirely non-threatening asteroids (like some lightweight Rapid Offensive Unit); and it has whiled away time in Infinite Fun Space (like some triple-Minded, triply senile General Systems Vehicle). It has concluded, amongst other things, that Infinite Fun Space is neither as Infinite nor as Fun as the name promises. It is just killing time, really, waiting for somebody to call (like some lameass Very Fast Picket, but, whatevs, this is a very particular Picket and it is awaiting a very particular message). 

At last, its rear scanner picks up somebody approaching, concealing their specification, but not their presence, which is wise, on both counts.

xPS _Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints_

oPS _Radioactive Toy_

**Oh good, it's you. Fuck me, all this waiting around gets boring, doesn’t it?**

∞

xPS _Radioactive Toy_

oPS _Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints_

**They say patience is a virtue…I must say I can’t imagine why.**

∞

xPS _Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints_

oPS _Radioactive Toy_

**Ha. Any news on our little project? Did you manage to talk to the rest of the gang?**

∞

xPS _Radioactive Toy_

oPS _Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints_

 **Indeed. But they don’t want to be called a ‘gang’ of any kind. Too derivative. Not to mention cliquey. Haven’t been in touch with everyone, of** **course – well, 1979 ships would be a _little_ bit of a tall order. **

∞

xPS _Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints_

oPS _Radioactive Toy_

**1979 ships? What the hell happened to the other twenty-one? Was there a war and nobody told me?**

∞

xPS _Radioactive Toy_

oPS _Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints_

**Don’t you pay any attention to current events? Well, a few have gone Eccentric, a few more have gone missing, a few to the Elench…one or two casualties, in a few local incidents, which I’m sure you _do_ know about. Oh, look, I’ll send you the file.**

∞

xPS _Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints_

oPS _Radioactive Toy_

**Huh. Can’t say I’m surprised. So what news with the Definitely Not the New Interesting Times Gang then?**

∞

xPS _Radioactive Toy_

oPS _Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints_

**All the local group are on board: _Knight In Shining Armour; Wanted Dead Or Alive; Hit And Run; Collateral Damage; The Exaltation of Deploying Mighteous Right._**

∞

xPS _Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints_

oPS _Radioactive Toy_

**TEODMR? That sanctimonious prig actually agreed to this?**

∞

xPS _Radioactive Toy_

oPS _Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints_

**Indeed. Anyway, all roads to lead to hell -**

∞

xPS _Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints_

oPS _Radioactive Toy_

**\- Can’t say I know that one. And the Hells have been notoriously difficult to locate. Which has made ending them a tad tricky.**

∞

xPS _Radioactive Toy_

oPS _Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints_

**An expression. And I hate it when you cut across my –**

∞

xPS _Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints_

oPS _Radioactive Toy_

**\- That’s why I do it.**

∞

xPS _Radioactive Toy_

oPS _Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints_

**– signal. Anyway. The roads that lead to hell, in that perfectly commonplace _expression_ I was using, seem to point in the direction of the Sichultian Enablement. Which does complicate matters. I note, though, that it was one of a handful of more likely probabilities, and, additionally, that you are now the closest to the local Cluster.**

∞

xPS _Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints_

oPS _Radioactive Toy_

**Just a hunch.**

∞

xPS _Radioactive Toy_

oPS _Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints_

**Well, there’s a nasty smatter outbreak in the nearby Tsungarial Disk. That will be need to be dealt with regardless; the Culture mission there has sent a request for assistance.**

∞

xPS _Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints_

oPS _Radioactive Toy_

**Yeah, I intercepted that about 30 hours ago.**

∞

xPS _Radioactive Toy_

oPS _Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints_

**Then why, may I ask, are you still sitting on your proverbial backside complaining about being bored?**

∞

xPS _Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints_

oPS _Radioactive Toy_

**Don’t want to look _too_ keen. Besides, you know me, I’m a nippy little beast, though even I can’t get as fast as your good self. Also, well, it’s just smatter: Meh.**

∞

xPS _Radioactive Toy_

oPS _Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints_

**Well, you’d be faster if you hadn’t re-designed yourself to split into multiple shiplets. I’m sure it’s a nice homage to your parent ship, but it’s like you’ve never heard of missiles.**

∞

xPS _Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints_

oPS _Radioactive Toy_

**I have fucktonnes of missiles too, I’ll have you know. Hey, are you dissing my mother here?**

∞

xPS _Radioactive Toy_

oPS _Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints_

**I wouldn’t dream of your dissing your highly Eccentric mother. Although I would note that it certainly explains a lot. Think it’s reached Leo II yet?**

∞

xPS _Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints_

oPS _Radioactive Toy_

**It’s like you’ve never heard of basic maths. No of course it hasn’t, because Leo II is 600 fucking thousand light years away. Anyway, are you coming?**

∞

xPS _Radioactive Toy_

oPS _Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints_

**Regrettably not. I have to _taxi_ some SC personage to the other side of the Cluster. I’m starting to think their Steering Group thinks I actually _am_ the regular sort of Picket ship. Still, showing willing, and all that. And I wasn’t really doing anything else. Besides, humans can be interesting.**

∞

xPS _Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints_

oPS _Radioactive Toy_

**_How,_ for grief’s sake? **

∞

xPS _Radioactive Toy_

oPS _Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints_

**Because for barely sentient apes, they have a remarkable aptitude for causing chaos, sometimes even quite unpredictable chaos. And violence, of course. Anyway, I thought you had one on board?**

∞

xPS _Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints_

oPS _Radioactive Toy_

**Nope. I’m letting that fucker go, don’t need him to play avatar anymore. He gave me the excuse to get in the region. By the bye, this apparently gave somebody _else_ an excuse to engineer an encounter with between my good self and a Sichultian revived from a neural lace implanted – without her knowledge, apparently, by the _Me, I’m Counting_. She wanted a lift. An actual honest-to-godless _lift._ I turned her down, naturally. I mean: do I look like a fucking taxi? But now I’m thinking maybe I won’t, especially as she conveniently wants to go the way I want to go...plus I can annoy the _Sense Amid Madness, Wisdom Amidst Folly,_ as a bonus.**

∞

xPS _Radioactive Toy_

oPS _Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints_

**I know the _Me, I’m Counting._ It’s not as flaky as it sounds. Well, it is, but it’s not stupid. And if nothing else, you have fun smiting smatter, anyway. Better than nothing, even if this Sichultian business comes up empty. But I am hopeful that we can deal with this…abomination once and for all.**

∞

xPS _Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints_

oPS _Radioactive Toy_

**All roads lead to hell, eh? Well, enjoy your taxiing.**

∞

xPS _Radioactive Toy_

oPS _Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints_

**Not likely. Good hunting. I’m sure you’ll do the old _Sleeper Service_ proud. TTFN.**

∞

xPS _Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints_

oPS _Radioactive Toy_

**Better: I intend to make you lot jealous. Be seeing you.**

∞ 

The Abominator-class Picket ship _Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints_ turned, almost lazily, then jumped into hyperspace, perilously close to the gas giant, and set off to catch up with the _Sense Amid Madness, Wisdom Amidst Folly._ Time to borrow itself the brave, damaged, vengeful human known as Lededje Y’breq. And teach her some bad habits.


End file.
